Flyball Training Question

[Genie]

I'm currently training Zeb for Flyball. He's doing well on everything so far except that he won't drop the tennis ball for the tug. I can tell him 'Out' and he'll drop the ball, but then he will go after the ball the other dog dropped in the next lane. If I don't tell him to drop the ball, he will run by me with the ball in his mouth, grumbling. I know that he wants the tug, but the ball is more appealing to him. He loves to play fetch more than anything else and I know that's why he's not grabbing the tug. He would rather play fetch than tug. My concern is that he's running well past me and circling wide and that could be a problem if he crosses into the other lane. Any ideas?

[Root Beer]

I don't play flyball, but I have an idea. Could you get a tug with a tennis ball attached at the end? I have one of those for Dean that I use for agility training.

 

Maybe he would go after the ball on the end of the tug instead of going for the one in the lane.

 

If that's not allowed, the only thing I can think of is to premack up the tug as much as you can to try to condition him to find it more compelling than ball, or to teach a very solid game of "trade".

[Aquarius89]

When he gets quite near to you, try rolling ANOTHER ball (with no bounce) straight in front of you. Or, try Kristine's suggestion. That's a good one too!

[Genie]

Could you get a tug with a tennis ball attached at the end? I have one of those for Dean that I use for agility training.

 

That's a good idea and it works for some other dogs in the club, but Zeb seems to be playing by the rules of fetch as he likes them. Flyball is just another game of fetch to him.

[Genie]

When he gets quite near to you, try rolling ANOTHER ball (with no bounce) straight in front of you.

 

That might work. I'm told that you can't throw anything in flyball, but I think I may just have to do that in order to stop him from zooming past me. I need to do something before the behavior is well established. If that works, I'll have another challenge: phasing out the throw at the end.

:::sigh::: He'll be a fast dog if I can work past his tendency to make up his own rules...

[Aquarius89]

That might work. I'm told that you can't throw anything in flyball, but I think I may just have to do that in order to stop him from zooming past me. I need to do something before the behavior is well established. If that works, I'll have another challenge: phasing out the throw at the end.

:::sigh::: He'll be a fast dog if I can work past his tendency to make up his own rules...

 

Really? Weird. When my team practices some people throw balls for their dogs when they come back.

 

Would food make him drop the ball?

[2 Devils]

My borderjack runs for another ball. He does not drop the ball for a tug and he will spit a treat for a ball so I gave in and use another ball. Once he knew we had the second ball he came back to us. We do have a routine that is hard to describe but as long as Riot has 2 balls between his front legs he will not run off after the other ball.

 

I know most say, tug tug, tug... but sometimes that does not work. Run Zeb for a second ball and see if that works.

[Seelie Fey]

I don't know which organization you are competeing under, but I have seen people use balls to lure dogs back in both NAFA and UFLI. The tug is nice because if you can get your dog to do it, the dog is running back to you full speed, attached to you by the tug and easily grabable in case you have to run again. But, sometimes it doesn't work.

 

You can work on building tug drive by holding him back and then racing for the tug, lots of recalls with the tug, really amping up tug play (yipping squealing noises, pretending to push the dog away, etc.) Play fetch where you throw the ball, he brings it back, but don't thow it again unless he at least nudges the tug.

 

But I haven't seen anyone object to rolling a ball or lightly tossing it to the dog when they are in front of you. One team uses chuck it sticks to bring the dogs back. They mime swinging it, and probably practice with actually flinging tennis balls for the dogs as they return. The biggest concern is that whatever you do to draw your dog back cannot interfere with the other dogs. If it squeaks, or goes flying across the room, rolls into the other lane or makes the runback smell like tuna fudge, it's interference.

[border_collie_crazy]

just teach him to hand the ball to you rather then dropping it, then just play a game of mini catch as the reward(tossing the ball direct into his mouth) Happy is the same was as zeb, so this is what I did with her, and it worked wonderfuly, didnt slow her down a bit, and she didnt run off because she was too focased on the game of mini catch to care about anything else around.

[Genie]

Thanks for all the replies and great suggestions. I'll have to come back a few times to rearead them to absorb it all.

Flyball is a new sport to me and I want to make sure I don't make any mistakes that require retraining. I get a lot of help and support from the people I train with, but they don't have a whole lot of experience with training border collies.

I called a friend who does have the BC and flyball experience and she isn't worried. She thinks its typical of a young BC learning flyball.

Her suggestion is to go back to basics and do more recalls to the tug since he's very keen to tug if there's no ball involved. When we're ready to try adding the ball back in, we'll use babygates or a line of people to keep him from curving to the right if he runs past me. Running past isn't a concern, but arcing to the right and interfering with a dog next to us is.

In between practice days, I'll try playing with the tug more and try alternating tug and fetch.

[PSmitty]

You're right, in NAFA, you can't throw anything in the racing lanes. You can roll the ball in practice, but you might get called on it in a tournament.

 

just teach him to hand the ball to you rather then dropping it, then just play a game of mini catch as the reward(tossing the ball direct into his mouth)

 

That's what I do with Alex. He likes to tug, unless there's a ball in the vincinity, then forget it! He comes back for another ball.

[ZoZo]

I've noticed the type of tug I use makes a big difference, definitely worth trying out other styles. I went through 4-5 before we ended up with long heavy-duty rope thing that's a few inches wide. Zoey didn't like the other ones we used much (she hated the rope and ball combo for some reason- I thought she would really like that). But she loves his giant tug and goes bonkers for it. She can't wait to get at it and she started doing everything better as a result.

[Genie]

Thank you all for the replies. Here is an update:

 

We started with more recalls and baby gates to prevent him from curving off to the right. Then we added drop-ball work. I released him to go over the jumps and grab a ball dropped before the box, then back over the jumps to another person with a tug. That worked well, but when we added a ball to the tug, it worked even better (thank you for the suggestion). We still have to take the tennis ball away from him to get him to tug, but now he's coming to us to play that tug game instead of running way past and around.

 

Here's a picture of him during recall practice:

[SatchmosMom]

 

I have 3 Border Collies (not puppies), 2 are in training. One dog will hold onto the ball and one dog will drop it all the time. For both dogs, I am teaching them that the tug means food.

 

We play tug at home for treats and the only time they see the tug is when I bring it out for our special playtime. They are both focused on the ball and then the food but to protect my hands when they learn to run full on, they HAVE to learn the steps. That is, ball then tug then treat. My boy who doesn't tug will now voluntarily mouth the tug before asking for his treat, we are making progress. I did this by shoving the tug in his mouth, big praise and shoving a treat in the side of his mouth. My female who doesn't want to let go of the ball changed her mind when I made the tug a much more exciting thing to play with. The tug might never be as exciting as the ball but they can learn to put it in the sequence.

 

You can't throw objects but I've seen people tie something like a toy to the end of a tug and drag it like a lure.

 

I have to use a tug for my "FM" dog because if I don't keep my hands away she'll bite them in a flyball frenzy! The reason my FM dog runs 3.7 seconds and lunges at the tug is because I am the best thing in her life, the ball is simply a vehicle to get praise and lots of it. I cannot stress ths enough especially for needy BC pups. If the thing you get most excited about is the tug then the dog will think "hey maybe I should check that thing out" BC's are very nosy and want whatever you have. Play keep away with the tug by running away from the dog waving it around and screeching!

 

I hope this is helpful. Once your pup realises that the game is to drop the ball upon return and play tug with you, your dog will gain confidence and run back like the wind.